Let’s be clear about what has just happened. A federal court has issued a prior restraint on speech (it’s attempting to block the spread of information; it is not blocking the lawful home manufacture of firearms) that is already thoroughly and completely moot. The files are out. They’re all over the internet. They’ve been copied and reproduced. The judge’s order can’t change that fact.

Moreover, Defense Distributed and the Second Amendment Foundation are hardly the only sources for online files or blueprints that enable a home manufacturer with a 3D printer to make a gun.

True enough. The files are, in fact, out there. And because they’re out there, no one — not an impotent federal judge, or the ignorant attorneys general in New Jersey, Oregon, New York, Washington state or anywhere else — can do a damned thing about it.

So, at least for now, Defense Distributed can’t distribute their files. But today’s order has zero effect on anyone else with access to those files, which have already been downloaded by thousand of people. So we’d like to do our part in helping to ensure that the signal reaches as many more people as possible.

This album shows off some of the wonderful parts in the newest FOSSCAD Megapack 4.8 (Ishikawa). This pack is a collection of the newest FOSSCAD CAD files including all previous Megapacks. This pack hence replaces all previous Megapacks. These files are not being released by Defense Distributed or DEFCAD Incorporated. In this Megapack (4.8), changes include some reorganization of file and folder names. See the changelog for other significant additions. The FOSSCAD community is releasing the NEWEST pack sharing the datalove.

I was able to fire up a bit torrent client and download the entire site trivially and securely. All nicely organized into folders with firearm names in them. How is blocking a single site going to change anything? Now the ‘blocking’ is only going to encourage even more sharing of data. In other words, in an attempt to block information the law of unintended consequences kicks in and overcomes this by making the data akin to public domain. That’s what makes the internet so beautiful it sees censorship in the same way as it sees a bad server connection.

I thought of doing the same thing, back when they first made DD take the info down. The next day I already found the files on a dozen different servers. I wasn’t interested in using them, i’ve been building shotguns and cannons out of water pipes since I was a teen, which seem quite a bit better than most printed firearms. I was going to download them for safekeeping, but there were so many, it seemed a moot point.
Now there are thousands. They cannot stop the signal.

Doubtful it ever will be declared illegal. There’s already been court cased about the censorship of books about bombs, like the anarchist cookbook. The makers of those books all won, citing the 1st amendment.

“There’s already been court cased about the censorship of books about bombs, like the anarchist cookbook. The makers of those books all won, citing the 1st amendment.”

Ah, yes. But….guns. Different time, different politics, different courts. The ultimate game will not be to ban information, or even ban 3-D printing of guns. The ultimate game will be to split Trump from his base. Media can’t do it. Dimowits can’t do it. Alexandra three-names can’t do it. Only Trump can separate himself from his base: fix bump stocks; stop 3-D printing?

Trump won based on closing the border and stopping the invasion if illegals; not on defending the Second Amendment.

Heck, this 3-D gun business just might permanently rip the sheet off the establishment Republicrats.

Dude, that’s is complete wrong, and it is not how constitutional law works. Every single court case is built off of previous court cases, which themselves are cases before them them, all the way back to the constitution itself. This isn’t to say that a previous case can never be overturned, but it’s exceedingly rare for a SCOTUS decision to be reversed. Especially something so built up like 2A law.

Now this is not to say there is zero chance that they will be able to keep Cody Wilson from distributing those files. But given the weight of existing constitutional precedence it’s simply not likely to happen. Best case scenario about the best they will be able to pull off is a delaying action whilst they trying to figure out a way to pass a new law. Which will then still probably fail constitutional muster in SCOTUS.

And I’ll be honest… I kind of hope they try. Because these assholes are trying to hinge this entire case off of a 10th amendment argument. And if it goes to SCOTUS and they lose it could cripple the ability for states to pass their own gun control laws that above federal law.

“The courts” are not paragons of constitutional knowledge, respect, or intellect. Then there is a President and Legislature to consider. Not to mention that Scalia found comfort with restrictions on the Second Amendment, and Kavanaugh does also.

Can you not see a federal court ruling that there is compelling government interest in keeping society safe, and that free plans for home-printing a gun is more dangerous than current methods, and thus not only can DD not distribute files, but the mere possession is illegal? Or that the President and Congress cannot come up with “sensible legislation” that puts production and possession of 3-D print instructions for guns inside the NDA as Any Other Weapon?. Have you not been around long enough to observe how twisted our laws are these days?

Son, you can screech all you want and make any claim you want, but that still doesn’t chain the hard reality of constitutional law. A new administration or a federal court can’t simple walk in and table flip multiple settled SCOTUS court cases just because on random low level federal judge gets a bug up their ass about one particular new piece of technology. Especially given the ‘liberator’ that everyone is going on about is nothing more than a proof of concept for the technology. The other more conventional designs all fall within the scope of settled SCOTUS cases.

“…but that still doesn’t chain the hard reality of constitutional law. ”

If “the hard reality” of constitutional law was real, we would have no need for the multiplicity of pro-2A organizations, nor even this blog. Just how hard a reality exists if we ended up with all these laws restricting what we can buy, what we can carry, where we can carry it. NFA, GCA were not a constitutional amendments, they were simple legislation upheld by the SC. When you have federal district courts issuing nation-wide injunctions, and the SC does not even change its napping position, where is the “hard reality” of constitutional law? Wish things were different, but they aren’t.

Are you one of those who think disagreement, or opposing ideas are not to be tolerated, or taken seriously?

Is asking that you take into account the current legal, constitutional and political environment some sort of forbidden occult practice?

Look again at history. As noted before, if constitutional law were a hard reality, we wouldn’t be where we are – so far from what the founders intended. Is pointing that out “stupid”? Is noting that we are saddled with heretical restrictions on our constitutionally protected rights, and that that is the “hard reality”, stupid?

If constitutional law were a “hard reality”, we wouldn’t have any infringements on our human rights that are not enumerated in the constitution (such as “…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;…”). We have an SC that, in the last half of the twentieth century lay down a ruling that refusal to participate in interstate commerce is a violation of the commerce clause of the US constitution.

There is always federal mischief afoot. Do you really trust government (all of it) to secure your rights? To protect you from itself?

Dude, you need to read more about precedent-based law. Pick up “Bleak House” for a British example, but precident holds a lot of weight in our courts. Judge’s opinions certainly tip the scales, but it’s bizarrely unlikely that we’d have that much case law overturned in one fell swoop. Like Roe v. Wade overturned unlikely. The number of things allowed under established first amendment law are really wide. Conspiracy theories about Trump don’t really cut it.

And yes, our rights have been undermined…but the process has been in slow motion for a long time. Racist laws in the antebellum south. The original Progressives. Woodrow bloody Wilson. FDR until Reagan (though Goldwater helped start the revolt). The March through the institutions. This stuff takes a lot of time. But First Amendment law is, from my understanding, pretty strong. You can print almost anything you want in this country except for libel (very narrowly constructed) state secrets and kiddie porn. You may be liable under commercial agreements for publishing (or, of course, stealing) trade secrets. But you want to tell people how to make a nuke? Enrichment is a state secret, but textbooks give enough to get you started, and outright tell you enough to make a primitive nuke with the right materials. That’s not their purpose, but trust me, it’s not hidden. Weapons? Follow the links. You can buy or download a copy of of the Anarchist’s Cookbook if such floats your boat. The patents for the AR-15, Beretta 92, and many others are available in the public domain, and give you enough to reconstruct them. The CAD files are just a nice addition, but the data is all there. This isn’t really anything new, and I suspect all of the Supremes will slap this down eventually. I don’t agree with some, but this is about as cut and dry as these get.

And what, may I inquire, was the precipitating event for each of the examples of “precedence” you describe?

A law or regulation promulgated by government. If you expect government to be deterred from acting because of precedent, you have overlooked over two hundred twenty five years of our history. A law making possession of the DD files does not mean it can withstand eventual SC scrutiny, but meanwhile that law can be used against the people.

As precedent, the NFA is a clear violation of “shall not be infringed”, yet there it stands. Heller 1 and 2 leave some restrictions of gun possession in place. So, if congress desires, and the president willing, possession of 3-D gun files can be declared illegal. There may be years of court fights afterward, but the law stands until adjudicated. Ergo, 3-D gun files are made illegal to possess. Which is all I posed, or implied. At that point, the politicians win, and can use the law for political purposes until overturned (and even afterward – they can claim success and blame failure on the courts; either way the politicians win).

Once again…you’re barking up the wrong tree. Publishing of information falls under First Amendment law. You can complain (and look, I don’t like it any more than you) all you want about the undermining of our Second Amendment rights, but this falls under the much stronger First Amendment body of law. It won’t hold up. Books about how to make guns are…books. Digital files are digital files. If someone starts a precedent of treating digital files like the objects they discuss, we’ll have a brand new situation, but I don’t see that happening. There is a huge body of law treating pretty much all information not discussed as freely publishable. I do see someone reigning the president in and this going nowhere.

There is a large body of past cases regarding the first amendment that might make one think it is inviolable. I do not. Not since the advent of “hate speech” being upheld as a legitimate infringement on the first amendment, and as an aggravating circumstance in criminal law.

Once the nation accepts that the first amendment does not protect “hate” as a motivator for speech and writing, the end of free speech is close at hand. Note that “hate speech” is not an amendment to the constitution, but mere legislation and regulation. The judicial branch is approving changes to the constitution without the bother of using the existing political means for dealing with changes to enumerated rights. The evidence of judicial perfidy is right before your eyes….a federal injunction on printed instructions and pictures.

It is a small step between the first and second amendments. The idea that speech is violent action is being salted into the national lexicon. That concept can lead to arguments that just words related to guns are violent action, a form of hate speech.

I do not give government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to limits on personal liberty and freedom. Governments relentlessly seek ways to “make people do right”. I went to school with the parents of the snowflakes of today. Their parents were obsessed with the idea of law and government as a force for coercing others.

The judge ruled that the Administration did not follow the proper procedures in removing firearms plans from the MTCL. However, in 2013 Obama signed a UN treaty (Arms Trade Treaty – ATT) that among other things requires all signatory states to impose strict export controls on know-how and manufacturing diagrams. So even if the Administration followed the proper procedures to remove these items from the MTCL, a judge is likely to declare that removal illegal. Once a treaty is signed, it goes into force immediately, and is only non-operative if the Senate rejects it. The Senate never voted on the ATT, so it is legally binding. Posting information illegally for export carries severe federal penalties, and any US person who posted these files is likely to be prosecuted if and when a Democrat wins the White House. Post at your own risk.

There is a key difference between books and internet posting. Export control laws prohibit international dissemination, and the internet is inherently global. On the other hand, physical books can presumably be prohibited from export but still allowed to have internal distribution. Information is covered by export controls, much the same as physical objects like thermal cameras – and it has long been illegal to post export controlled information on the internet. Go buy a thermal camera online and you have to sign all kinds of export control paperwork and send them copies of your IDs, but if you are a US citizen in the US you can do it.

“You have more trust in government than I would ever propose anyone have.“

I believe in America’s capabilities more than you seem to. If it’s government cannot be trusted to safeguard the people’s interests, then what good is it? You had just as well throw your constitution into the trash receptacle and let anarchy reign.

This information for readily available weapons to download by any dreg with ill intentions will become a blight upon decent society at large. Places like Europe will be subjected to the barbarism of commando wannabes printing off assault rifles in their mommies’ basements and committing mass carnage. All thanks to the armed infants in America wanting downloadable plans for weapons of war for anyone to exploit.

It’s time that we get sensible once again and disarm these infants, both of their guns and any dangerous blueprints for creating them. Guns are for responsible adults, not man-children. This isn’t only for America’s own good, but the world’s also.

“If it’s government cannot be trusted to safeguard the people’s interests, then what good is it? ”

No government can be trusted. They must be disciplined by its people. The US constitution provides for the people to control and discipline the government. If government could be trusted, there would be no need of a constitution. The founders knew a national government was necessary, but needed controls on it because all governments eventually seek to make vassals of its people. Madison said it best.

If this was anyone but ‘2ASUX,’ I’d ask, incredulously, “That’s all satire, isn’t it? You can’t be stupid enough to believe all of that, right? I mean, you KNOW that this information has been open-source available for literally YEARS, right? ”

Hey 2Asux, why would any would-be terrorist in Europe want to go through the trouble of making a 3D-printed firearm when they can already get factory made AK-47’s through the black market? Or drive a truck through a crowded town square, for that matter?

I believe in America’s capabilities more than you seem to. If it’s government cannot be trusted to safeguard the people’s interests, then what good is it?

Exactly.

You had just as well throw your constitution into the trash receptacle and let anarchy reign.

non sequitur. They need to be following the constitution. That’s it. Just because they are not following the constitution now doesn’t mean we need anarchy. It just means they need to follow the constitution.

This information for readily available weapons to download by any dreg with ill intentions will become a blight upon decent society at large. Places like Europe will be subjected to the barbarism of commando wannabes printing off assault rifles in their mommies’ basements and committing mass carnage. All thanks to the armed infants in America wanting downloadable plans for weapons of war for anyone to exploit.

I’m glad that you just finally acknowledged that gun control doesn’t work. Now you should work on improving the British people, not taking their freedoms away.

It’s time that we get sensible once again and disarm these infants, both of their guns and any dangerous blueprints for creating them. Guns are for responsible adults, not man-children. This isn’t only for America’s own good, but the world’s also.

Good luck with that. Plenty of people have been trying to stop pirated movies and music online. They try to stop the drug trade across the border. This is the future, get used to it. And my recommendation is improving the people of Britain, rather than taking their freedoms away, because, honestly, you can’t stop the signal. Your only hope is to produce responsible people, because you have failed, in taking their freedom.

K-Den! Now, what is to prevent the WOKE 3D Printer companies from preventing the use of the files?
Unless, we save each file with your own unique file name which is a good start, until those WOKE 3D printer companies actually embed blocking code that hones in on the code strings of the in-the-wild lower 3D printing programs.

Any trusted 2A coders out there to help prevent these WOKE 3D companies from blocking the 3d printing process??

Privacy and techno-utopian people will be all over enforced restrictions … they’re the ones who figured out personal printers lace the page w a dot code that traces to the device serial number. (You do have a little nearly UV LED key fob that makes them visible, right?) So, of course they want yr brass tracable to yr gun with “microstamping”, they can trace every page you print back to your printer, so…

One e-entry point is Alt 2600. Wear protection.

(Did you hear the joke about the guy who brought a telco-issue android phone to defCon?)

Open source software, my man, which can already be used with the Ghost Gunner 2 CNC machine.

This is what I find hilarious – everyone is focused on 3D printing of relatively poopy firearms when Cody has been selling a CNC machine to allow near-idiots to finish aluminum AR-15, AR-10, and 1911 lowers/frames for years now.

The Secret Service has already done this to prevent the home printing of currency. Try printing a color image of a dollar bill with an inkjet printer and the printer will recognize the image and abort it partway through with some error message. I have no doubt that once home 3D printers and CNC mills are more common, a future Democratic Administration will require that code be embedded into the printers/mills to recognize and abort the printing of all kinds of prohibited objects. Doing this will only get easier as computer chips get more capable.

Well, the opposition would argue that criminals would use said files to manufacture handguns and hurt innocent people, completely ignoring the fact that anyone with a drill can finish an 80% lower/frame

I thought I left a comment here, maybe I was just half a sleep at 2AM and hit the wrong button…

Actual kiddie porn is heinous and often harms kids, obviously… But I’ll just throw this out there.

100% CGI porn harms no one and is actually legal in just about every western country except the UK. In the UK, attempts to outlaw shota, etc, are pretty much the same thing as trying to outlaw people from downloading gun files, an unenforceable exercise in futility.
As long at humans have the ability to draw… there will be porn of anything. Its rule #34 of the internet.

And yet a gun is neither good nor evil but is an extension of the one wielding it. A gun can be used to defend children as well as kill them, where as kiddie porn only destroys. A gun can make a child equal with the strongest of men.

Suppose I trespass on your property and start digging big holes looking for buried treasure. You discover my shenanigans and call the police. Should the shovel, or should I, be held accountable for the damage to your property?

I will tell you, right up front, that not a single firearm, firearm component, or even raw plastic or metal matrix material was harmed sexually, physically or psychologically in the making of this 3D blueprint. Copying of this 3D blueprint will likewise not RESULT in the sexual, physical, or psychological harming of a firearm, a firearm component, or any raw material.

Yeah, his comment means nothing. Zero. It does betray his complete ignorance, however. It is already illegal to sell any firearm made at home. So called ‘ghost guns’ are legal to make, but not to sell. Selling one would be manufacture without a licence, already a violation. 3D printed is no different. Once made, all you can legally do is keep it, or destroy it. No sales. One would think the president of the Country(not to mention his hundreds of lawyers) would know that, but… nope.

The President tends to freak out, show his roots as an (almost) lifelong Democrat, have his advisors explain things, then do something entirely different. Before anyone complains, I do think he’s better than the alternative, but face it, his Twitter feed is a slow motion dumpster fire that mainly serves to spin people up until the next strange thing he tweets in the middle of the night.

True, but there’s just so darned much entertainment value in watching progressive heads explode when he aims something their way (and then it just ends up with them looking foolish) that I’m willing to put up with a certain number of “omigawd, why the heck did he say that?” moments of my own, so long, as we said above, that the bad stuff just sort of peters out.

From reading online commentary, a major fright seems to be that 3-D guns are “undetectable”. Presuming a totally plastic/polymer, with absolutely no metals (including the ammunition), why would such guns be more undetectable than my hairbrush in my luggage, going through TSA?

“Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold
to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t
seem to make much sense!
8:03 AM • 31 Jul 2018 ”
Woohoo! yeah, Trump is Sooooooooo pro-2a and is for gun owners And boy are his facts on point! Can’t put anything past this guy!

So Trump totally rope-a-doped the gun ban/control lobby, why is that bad? The only people so twisted up in knots over Trumps statement are the LEFTISTS

Thanks for the links Dan! Thank you to the folks who have a platform for sharing, and who have done so!

Back in the Middle Ages the general populace believed in and practiced deodand law, if a tree or stone fell on someone and killed them, they would put the object on trial and convict it of murder. The anti-gun left seems to have regressed into this very kind of thinking, they seem to truly believe that the trigger pulls the finger rather than the other way around. Until they can recognize that inanimate objects have no innate capacity for good or ill, I will have to regard them as uneducated, and incapable of rational thought, and treat them that way.

I’m enjoying the wailing and knashing of teeth from the anti gun groups right now. Even with this injunction, as shown here, it’s not even delaying the inevitable. I’m going to go pour a dram of Lagavulin and enjoy my shadenboner.

So, how is the “War On Drugs” coming, anyway? Why do you think the “War On Guns” is going to end any differently? The government banning something just changes the price. But in this case, loyal Americans, respecting our constitution, will just distribute the banned items for free, then go home and brag about it. You’ve lost and you don’t even know it?

Would arguments against the restraining order, even from Perry Mason, have mattered at all?

The SC ruled in the ’50s that the president had complete authority to make decisions on who would be allowed to immigrate into the country, and that political considerations were not to be entertained by the judicial branch.* Yet, just recently we saw federal courts defy the seminal SC ruling, and issue nation-wide injunctions against the “Muslim ban”, based on political considerations. It is likely the plaintiffs in the 3-D gun case found a sympathetic judge who would issue the injunction, regardless of existing law, or precedence. The legal prowess of opposing attorneys would have been irrelevant. We are living in an age where the federal courts are fiefdoms, ruling as they please, in place of a legislature.

I read through the Judge’s decision. He is basing his injunction on the notion that the Administration removed items from the MTCL without using the proper administrative procedures (concurrence of the Sec State and Sec Def, and 30 days advance notice to Congress). All the stuff about internal US distribution and supposed dire consequences for those States merely shows that the State AG’s have standing to bring the case, but is not the legal grounds for the injunction.

What if the Trump Administration follows the proper procedures instead of modifying the MTCL by legal settlement? I’d bet the Judge will rule that removing firearm plans from the MTCL is illegal because of the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty.

This is what Justice Thomas was talking about when he noted the Supreme Court was going to have to address District Courts making rulings for the whole country. This judge was seriously out of whack. His ruling needs to be retracted and he needs to recuse himself. Worse, this has been litigated already and the Federal Department which attempted to stop the distribution gave up the effort.

So you’re saying, if we treat thousands of people, including dozens of commenters here, like felons and sex offenders, we’ll be able to prevent at least some of the zero crimes committed with 3D printed firearms every year?

The “problem” is already “manageable” because in the real world, it’s not a problem.

Just saying the idea that “information can’t be stopped” is moot. Possession of said information could have such high consequences that no one wants anything to do with it. Force it to the dark web where it belongs and then force the rest of you Nazis back into your caves where you belong.

The enforcement of illicit porn has changed a lot in the last decade. Pervert technological sophistication has left the porn charges to be mostly after-the-fact charges after the perp has already been investigated for rape or molestation and the pornography found.

Factors such as encryption, ip masking, blockchain, broadcasting to flood the innocent, the sheer overwhelming abundance of it have changed enforcement techniques and priorities.

They’ve finally had enough of kicking in rando doors to find nothing because they didn’t understand the tech or do their due diligence so now the focus is on actually saving the children from their abusers instead of chasing pixels on an infinite track.

For the gun files this would be charging for their possession and distribution after you’ve already drawn attention to yourself by committing a physical crime with the gun itself.

Because 2asux aka Munkin Danuggets is always spouting illogical and completely untrue statements. don;t you remember him saying the US had more lethal violence than the US, where he counted in his stats suicide and homicide for the US, but only homicide for japan? in fact Japan child death by lethal violence is 40% higher than the US rate. Presented with the sourced and cited stats he just went nuts! He claimed the World Health organization was a “right wing cabal.”

All the wailing and gnashing over distribution of 3d files is also completely, hilariously, oblivious to the fact that 3d scanners, which can take an existing physical object and render it into dimensional data files that allow precise reproduction of that object, already exist, and are, like all other similar technology, advancing rapidly in capability and declining rapidly in price.

Home CNC machining is old news, and cannot be banned. Any factory or machine shop capable of making a functioning automotive jack (which is any viable metal manufacturing business or talented hobbyist) has the technology and skills to make _some_ form of functioning firearm

As Sun Tzu noted, strategy without tactics is the slowest path to victory, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. The current 3d hoopla is the ban crowd’s noise before defeat: they are only succeeding in bringing vast and continuing attention, to degrees not otherwise possible or previously imaginable, to the viability of DIY manufacture of firearms. Cody Wilson must be beside himself with glee at the heretofore unimaginable intensity and duration of publicity to his basic points about both First and Second amendment rights.

Not that we can rest from resisting the unending assault on Second Amendment rights- idiots are going to continue their idiocy. But the American appreciation- pretty much in our guerilla-formed-DNA, of the fundamental “check and balance” of not giving the government a monopoly on deadly force, is going to be nearly irrepressible to ever fully stamp out.

Has the liberal press got a hold of this yet?
It would definitely give them something to talk about
besides rhe Russians and whatever else they’re bantering about ad nauseum. When will they realize that people will excercise their rights no matter what. Maybe just cause they can. Amen. Thanks to you all for the debate, glad to see others think as I do.

I’m surprised this is an issue and though this had all been gone through back in 1979, for those who remember, when The Progressive magazine sued, won and printed an article discussing how the H-bomb worked:

This is an “issue” for the same reason decades of separating illegals at the border is now an “issue”: the left will do anything to win. And let me introduce this, here: “the only thing standing in the way of complete power by the left is elections.”

Before all of this nonsense, I had a moderate interest in design for rapid prototyping of firearms. Now, my interest has quadrupled. I’m working on upgrading my printer to print in carbon fiber reinforced polycarbonate JUST so I can print off super-durable receivers. I only have made any in PLA and ABS. Thanks, gungrabbers, for once again making me spend even more money just to make you mad.